In Exodus 31 verse 12, Yehoveh God, gives Moses the instruction to once again reminding the people of the important nature of the Sabbath in verse 13 where most Bibles will say, however, or nevertheless, or you shall keep my Sabbaths, the Hebrew word being translated is AKH. A translation other than however, or you shall that better captures the sense of it in our American mindset might be above all. That is this is a reminder from God that in all the business that is going to transpire with the building of the tabernacle and the altars and the making of the priest garments and so on that, nothing is more important to God than keeping the Sabbath.
What is clear in this section? Is that the rationale for observing, the Sabbath law is not so much that it is associated with the covenant of Moses, rather it is associated with creation. It is the creation narrative of Genesis, where we find the Lord, including his creative work, and then declaring the following day to be set apart as holy, As we find in Genesis chapter 2.
The idea here is that God ordained a day to celebrate the ceasing of his creative activities and the form of the celebration amounted to men ceasing our normal work, our creative activity. But it’s not that the Lord has ordained something new here at Mount Sinai in making a Sabbath day or making it something only for Israel. Rather he says you must keep my Sabbath in other words. Sabbath was created a long time ago for all men to observe, but apparently men quit paying attention to the Sabbath. So the Lord says to Israel, you are to make a point of observing it because you are a people set apart for me. So you will be the example of what people should be doing on the seventh day Shabbat, and this is Resting from their normal activities and being with their families and worshiping the Lord.
God has instructed above everything else the Sabbath is to be observed. Yet here in our time most believers claiming that Paul has instructed us that the Sabbath is obsolete or an observance that isn’t for Christians. Now We somehow have been Given latitude to change it to whatever is most convenient for us. Where does this idea come from? It is that the Old Testament is old and the New Testament is new, so the new replaces the old. Never mind that the sermon on the mount, Jesus said, the exact opposite, that not one jot or title, not the smallest detail would pass from the Torah, until heaven and earth pass away, and nothing could be a more central teaching to the Torah (Old Testament) Then the Sabbath.
And no, we cannot get out of the Sabbath issue just because God says the Sabbath is a perpetual covenant between Israel and him, because the New Testament makes it abundantly clear that when we accept our Messiah Yeshua,(Jesus), we become part of a group called true Israel, we become spiritual seeds of Abraham, we are joined to Israel’s covenants and all their blessings and obligations, in the most real way there is, spiritually.
